


sway

by rincewitch



Series: Captain of the Storms [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Drabble, F/F, FFxivWrite2020, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2020, im on my 'what if sei shonagon was a sword lesbian' bullshit again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26260009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rincewitch/pseuds/rincewitch
Summary: ffxiv write 2020 day 2: swayTiresome things about taking a long voyage by sea:1. The incessant creaking of the ship’s timbers.2. Sea-shanties sung out of tune.3. When the waters are becalmed, and one gets a sinking feeling that no progress towards one’s destination will be made today.4. Sea-shanties sung in tune, but repeated enough to well wear out their welcome.5. The feeling of the deck swaying beneath your feet.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Series: Captain of the Storms [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1431865
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: #FFxivWrite2020 Final Fantasy 30 Day Writing Challenge, Emet-Selch's Wholesomely Debauched Bookclub FFXIV-Writes 2020 Collection





	sway

_Tiresome things about taking a long voyage by sea:_

1\. The incessant creaking of the ship’s timbers.

2\. Sea-shanties sung out of tune.

3\. When the waters are becalmed, and one gets a sinking feeling that no progress towards one’s destination will be made today.

4\. Sea-shanties sung in tune, but repeated enough to well wear out their welcome.

5\. The feeling of the deck swaying beneath your feet.

Every morning, that’s the first thing I notice upon sitting up in bed. It is an immediate reminder of my predicament; the roiling seas permit not even one moment to pretend that my life, as I had known it, came to a sudden and calamitous end.

I’ve traveled far and wide— to Doma, to Thavnair, to the Azim Steppe— but every one of those prior voyages was of my own choosing. In those circumstances, the inconveniences of life at sea merely heighten the anticipation of reaching one’s destination.

They feel rather different when they betoken an involuntary and permanent exile.

As of today, this is the farthest I’ve ever been from home. It’s a demoralizing feeling, even for one typically given to wanderlust.

6\. When one day is the same as the next, lacking any useful— or even merely diverting— occupation for oneself.

I have far too much time to dwell on what’s happened. Hingashi preserved its ‘independence’ from Garlemald by assuming a posture of obstinate neutrality, turning a blind eye to all of the empire’s atrocities, ignoring the Garlean noose tightening around their own necks, strangling commerce, diplomacy, _culture._ The Bakufu will be swaying from the gallows, professing neutrality even with their last, strangled breaths.

Sometimes I burn with righteous indignation-- at the Bakufu’s cowardice, at Garlemald’s cruelty, at the fact that merely by writing unflinchingly of the horrors wrought in Doma. The things I’ve seen. The things done to me.

Sometimes, I dwell on what came before. It is easy for a cramped cabin to transform itself into my cell at Castrum Fluminis in the mind’s eye. My confinement was brought to a _decisive_ end by Chanai-- my love-- along with the lives of several of my jailors. Sometimes, however, I feel as if I had never left, and everything afterwards was merely some strange, delirious dream; a most dismaying feeling! Chanai, however, is more than able to liberate me from _that_ prison, too. Her mere presence serves to soothe. In spite of losing nearly everything, in spite of _her_ losing so much on my account, we still have one another. If this exile is to be at all bearable, it is only because of her good graces. As much as she, too, longs for the steppes-- even Kugane was far from _her_ home-- as much as she is apprehensive about what is to come, pursuing any course besides accompanying me to Eorzea never even occurred to her.

A moving act of devotion, and one I can only hope I have the opportunity to repay in kind.

_I am trying to look forward_

I am trying to look forward to our arrival in Eorzea; it, after all, can hardly be blamed for my banishment, and it wouldn’t do to let myself be poisoned against it on that basis. Arriving in a strange new land, observing its peoples, immersing myself in a new way of living-- such are some of the finest pleasures life has to offer. If I eventually found a second home in a place as rugged and majestic as the Azim Steppe, there’s no reason to think I couldn’t find a third in Eorzea.

Yet every attempt I have to summon this enthusiasm comes to naught. This isn’t another adventure I’ve embarked upon with a spring in my step and a travelogue to write; it’s a punishment. Dispiriting though it is, that fact cannot be willed away.

I have, however, found one source of solace: in Eorzea, at least, I shall no longer have to bite my tongue with respect to the empire’s depredations.

_I have grown accustomed_

I have grown accustomed to the ocean’s sway, which is surely a sign I have been at sea for far too long. It has been a month and a half since the last lights of Kugane dipped under the horizon, but time here passes so languidly it might as well have been aeons.

Perhaps resignation has set in.

Perhaps I have managed to find something to look forward to. However alien the cities of the West might be, they can’t possibly be so alien as the wooden world of a ship crossing a desolate sea.

More likely, it’s because Chanai is here. Nothing-- _nothing--_ feels entirely insurmountable with her by my side. I have lost a great many things this year-- but her love remains constant, unswayed by the tumult of nations and empires.


End file.
